Progeon annual loss Rs 3.1 crore

BANGALORE: Infosys’ BPO subsidiary, Progeon has posted a first year loss of Rs 3.1 crore over an annual revenue of Rs 20.85 crore. Nearly half of that that revenue came in the last quarter, which alone accounted Rs 10.43 crore of revenues. It also posted its first quarterly profit of Rs 0.9 crores in Q4.

Progeon MD and CEO Akshaya Bhargava said the company had added one client during the quarter — British Telecom. Though Bhargava would not give any figures on the size of that deal, it is estimated that BT alone could account for about 200 seats.

Progeon’s profit and loss has been consolidated under Infosys to comply with US GAAP accounting requirements. It now employs 539 people, with 113 added in Q4 alone. Post the BT deal the company plans to continue to hire aggressively in the coming months, Bhargava said.

Next quarter revenue projections for Progeon are flat at Rs 9.48 crore to Rs 10.4 crore. Though annual projections for the year ending March 31, 2004 are ambitious at Rs 76 to Rs 85 crore.

The BT outsourcing deal

Progeon is in the process of establishing one of the newest BT "Next Generation Contact Centers" (NGCC) in Bangalore, adhering to strict standards laid down by BT on infrastructure, facilities, Health and Safety, and technology. Initially, a dedicated telecom link of about 17 Mbps would be established between Progeon premises in Bangalore and BT’s co-locations in the UK.

Under the "framework" contract, Progeon would initially execute work for BT Directories and over time this may be extended to include a wider range of work. BT Retail is investing in a high capacity communications switch to be located at Bangalore. The provision of Directory Enquiries services would be the largest and most complex implementation of a voice capability in the country, with call volumes likely to be in the region of several million calls per month.